Relics

Teleport Glyph

Blink Rune

Horrific Emblem

Shield of Thorns

Achilles's Skill Order

Shield of Achilles

1X

1

Radiant Glory

2A

3

Combat Dodge

3B

2

Fatal Strike

4Y

4

My Introduction

Long time no see, Stuke here with another guide. Today, we are looking at the golden boy of Greek mythology, the seemingly indestructible and almost completely perfect, Achilles.Note: you don't have to follow this guide to the smallest detail, these are suggestions on how to play Achilles. I encourage you to look at the comment section below and see other suggestions.

Who is Achilles?

Achilles is a physical, melee, warrior who becomes a tough egg to crack with his ability to dodge, control, and sustain off the enemy to keep him going. He can play with the power of an assassin or the durability of a guardian with his passive Gift of the Gods which I'll explain later.

Pros / Cons

- Can't have both stats at the same time.
- Susceptible to Crowd Control.
- Has an Achilles Heel in his Ultimate.

Abilities

A good soldier needs to be prepared for the fight and this passive allows that to happen. While you're in the fountain, you can hit the left mouse button and either wear or take off your armor which can give you one of two stat increases. When wearing your armor, you gain an increase to your protections and health or you can show off your sick body and gain a boost to your power and movement speed {which will be referred to as Shirt vs Skin form). Depending on how the fight is going, what role you're in or what you like looking at, you decide if you want to hit harder or take hits better.

While it might appear to be a standard cone attack that does something else in an area of the cone, well, you're completely right. When you hit an enemy god with the center most cone, any enemy god gets stunned for a short duration, that's about it. Use this for your main lane clear and to bully an opponent who just so happen to be a tad too close to the range of the attack.

What's more fun than a buff to one stat, how about a buff to three stats at once. When activated Achilles gains a power, protection, and crowd control reduction. If you think that's ridiculous then you haven't found out that when he lands a damaging ability on a target he also heals for each enemy hit. Now like the lovable bunch at Hi-Rez they have a way to balance this ability out, instead of having flat values, they decided to make the buffs percentages. This ability is a clear demonstration on how well his passive synergies with the rest of his kit as you gain more benefits for the defensive stats in shirt mode and you gain the aggressive benefits while in the skin mode.

Ever played Rama, then you already know how this ability works, but what makes this ability much more useful in my opinion is that while you can't go as far you are able to dodge again when you hit an enemy god with his ability. It should also be known that you can weave in other abilities to help close the gap, deal more damage, and even get out of danger if being chased.

Want to know something dumb, execution abilities. Want to know something dumber, a warrior with an execute ability. Becoming CC immune, winding up a strike and charge forward, Achilles will severely damage the first enemy god in his way but will execute them when they hit the threshold. It only gets worst, after he successfully executes a target, he can use it again and again if he executes someone. This is where his Achilles Heel comes into play, to balance out the fact you've turned your enemy into a stain on the ground, you become more susceptible to damage from all sources that isn't friendly for each enemy you kill with your ultimate.

How to Build Achilles

When it comes to building Achilles, I prefer to build a balance between my offence and defense and throughout a fight I like to take my shirt off or put it back on if I'm dominating or getting dominated. If you want to go shirt, this provides a good amount of defense. Going skin, there's a good amount there to bring the pain.

Once again, this depends on the role you want as what you wear will affect how your play style.

For Solo: you wear your shirt as much or little as you want but it's best if you at least put it on for the late game.

For Jungle: focus on skin mode with mare aggressive high damage items

Tips and Combos

- Your shirt is your best friend.
While it is tempting to run around bare chested for a nice damage and speed boost looks attractive, you're not as durable as you think you are and just because you're a warrior doesn't make you invincible.

- Don't execute every chance you get.
While it is fun to get an execute on a target in the most dramatic way possible, the negative effect of becoming easier to kill is the antithesis of being a tank. out of all the execute abilities in the game, Achilles is the most dangerous if you miss or the target isn't below the threshold as you'll be in the middle of the fight. Use it when certain you'll get out or kill the target.

- The Combos
The basic combo in a fight should go something like this:

Stages of the Game

Early Game

Shirt or skin? Depending the enemy, you'll be laning against, or the role you're in can depend on how you need to dress. While it is early game, you will have better damage or defense compared to your opponent but not by much and you can die easily if reckless. Farm off the lane and bully your opponent till you out level them.

Middle Game

This is where his stats plateau, while you might do a bit more than Early Game, your opponent gets a bit stronger too. Keep bullying your lane until you destroy the enemy tower, this is when you can now start roaming and take off your shirt if you haven't already.

Late Game

This is where his abilities and stats begin to sky rocket. You hit harder, sustain better, take more hits than before, and able to do serious work with your presence in a team fight. Before you start getting into the team fights, put your shirt back on so you don't die easily.

In Conclusion

To sum this all up, Achilles is a beautiful man with a kit that complements his nearly god like potential as a fighter. Pick the right attire for the situation or whatever play style you're going for, use your kit to apply constant damage and heal off all targets, and remember that you're INDESTRUCTIBLE (expect for one flaw).

If you're going to go support I think he has to be built with major early aggression in mind. He has very little CC overall which means he's not going to easily be able to peel and protect teammates.

This means consider him more like a support jungler like some other assassins in the support role are played. Don't go for the aura items so much and look for cheap items to help with your general damage output.

But unless you're playing with friends and already have a strategy in mind, I probably wouldn't ever choose him in a support role.

Yeah, it's just a little too weird not having any listing of items or skill leveling. So empty at the top.

Only played him once so far (in Arena), and yeah...I didn't feel I did much, but I still got 25k damage while tanking a significant amount for my team and keeping him only with his shirt on...my damage was lowest on my team, but the highest ( Agni) was only 8k higher. Achilles' damage is perhaps too high, but it helps that his basic attacks are so slow.

(I built a bit wonky...didn't mean to go as much into physical protection, but was a bit brain dead. Probably could have foregone Frostbound Hammer though I did really like the slow for him. Also helps since he needs to weave basics in-between abilities, and doesn't have much CC in his kit other than that short stun with a long CD. At the mid-point of the match, I wanted a strong commitment into CDR, but as the only real tank, didn't want to get Jotunn's Wrath even though I had Frost and Urchin, so I just got BoV. Finished off with high power from Shifter's Shield and made the power count with Titan's Bane)

I did notice what feels to me like a lack of mobility in a teamfight. By this, I mean if you commit to using Combat Dodge in the middle of a fight, he's got almost nothing left and is then fully committed to finishing the fight, as there's no way in hell he's getting away. It's much, much better as a 1v1 tool for boxing, or as a pretty nice escape option...dodge an attack, counter, then dodge again. I like this balance just fine.

Also notice that the hit box for his ult seems pretty generous. Given the fact that he can adjust his aim before he dashes, I think a slightly narrower hit box would be good for balance.

So, your guide..."shirts vs. skins" is LOL. Well done, my friend. Like the humor you weave into the ability descriptions too.

On your example build, personally don't like it. I know it's meant as a cookie cutter, but when building decent amounts of protection, I don't like seeing Magi's Cloak. Yes, it provides good health (which you don't have in the rest of the build, so there IS that), but he's at least god a stun, some mobility, and additional delayed mobility in his ult if really, really needed, combined with the CC reduction also in his Radiant Glory. All said, I still feel like Magi's is a get out of jail for squishies, and this build is not a squishy's build. Instead, I'd probably point to Shifter's Shield or Masamune as a functional hybrid protection item, finishing up with something that has some health in it...maybe Shield of Regrowth, Stone of Gaia, or going for an earlier Hide of the Urchin and finishing with either Void Shield or Titan's Bane to get that pen.

You say his ult makes him CC immune, but I've heard that cripples prevent him from activating the ult...so I guess he's CC immune if already activated, but it's not a cleanse for ALL CC at least?

You might consider upgrading your Stages of the Game chapter..it's about as barebones as it gets, and personally doesn't provide anything all that helpful.

Finally, do you think Ratatoskr is a hard counter to him? He's so low to the ground, he can probably bite that tendon and truly cripple him for the remainder of the match. XD

Why did you removed the leveling order guide?
You've done it in all of your guides...
Someone new in Smite might level Achilles's abilities in a wrong order...
For example 3>2>1...
Don't you thing that a guide on what ability one should level 1st is a needed asset?

I have a blog post discussing how I’m going to make my guides from that point going forward. I’ll adjust it slightly to have a level in order and put the example build there but it still won’t be Meta relevant as I simple don’t have the time to go extensively like I use to.

Edit: I actually read some of your other guides, and those don't have builds either, so this is actually your style of guide. However, you are still missing an items section. Also, I like how you draw the god you are doing a guide on, very unique touch.

SmiteFire & Smite

Smite is an online battleground between mythical gods. Players choose from a selection of gods, join session-based arena combat and use custom powers and team tactics against other players and minions. Smite is inspired by Defense of the Ancients (DotA) but instead of being above the action, the third-person camera brings you right into the combat. And, instead of clicking a map, you use WASD to move, dodge, and fight your way through the detailed graphics of SMITE's battlegrounds.